Doctors Name New Mental Illness After Trump

Most people are susceptible to losing their cool from time to time. We all tend to make the occasional, emotionally driven poor decision. However, at what point does this tendency cross the line from basic human nature to actual mental illness? A team of psychiatric doctors and students at UCLA Medical Center believe they have successfully identified that distinction by naming a new illness — Trumpophrenia.

“We all teamed up to study the President of the United States’ apparent inability to handle criticism, and specifically how he handles that trait by publicly lashing out on social media in self-destructive ways.” Says post-doctoral student Mary MacLeod. “And as we began to dig deeper and deeper into the unstable psyche of Donald Trump, we began to realize that this disorder has never been identified in medical journals until now.”

Specifically, Dr. MacLeod explained that a “simple lack of impulse control, egotism, or compulsion about one’s self-image” doesn’t fully explain this mental illness. In their estimation, it seems that President Trump actually cannot control his own actions.

Dr. MacLeod explained, “For example, we came up with this thought experiment. The scenario says to imagine that you have been publicly insulted in a way that feels humiliating to you. This insult was so widely public that most people in the country are likely to have heard about it. You have the opportunity to respond to the insult on Twitter. However, Twitter’s ‘send’ button is also rigged to simultaneously administer a very painful shock to your thumb as you press it, causing severe and permanent nerve damage. If you simply do not respond, everything will be okay. If you send a Tweet, you will be shocked.”

This thought experiment was presented to approximately 5900 participants. The results of the study indicate that 98% of people would not push the button, citing that they could find a better way to respond. 2% of those surveyed said they would probably push the button, but they would regret it.

Dr. MacLeod, however, points out that President Trump falls outside this scale of measurement. Based on his actions, he seems to have “little concern for the consequences of his own decisions.”

“To someone with a mental illness like the President’s, consequences are secondary to ego and self-image.” Dr. MacLeod explains, “It’s not a normal matter of poor judgement. It’s a lucid, though-out decision that his own public image is more important that any possible consequence of defending it. This is beyond anything we have ever seen. Trump would push the button repeatedly until he ran out of fingers to shock, and then likely hire an assistant to push the button for him. That’s why we had to name the new illness, Trumpophrenia.”

In conclusion, Dr. MacLeod believes that, to a Trumpophrenia patient, there is likely nothing in the world more important than defending their own perceived public image. They will always reliably choose to defend their image at any cost, without regard for their own well-being, or that of anyone else affected by their actions. Unfortunately for the world, this patient’s actions often have a global effect.

The medical team has not yet identified any medicine to treat Trumpophrenia, but they have just been approved with an 8-figure emergency research grant to begin exploring a potential treatment or cure. NewsWerthy will report further if developments are made.